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Archduke Franz Ferdinand was heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. He was inspecting the army in Sarajevo with his wife Sophie. The royal couple arrived by train at 9.28am.

Seven young Bosnian Serbs planned to assassinate Franz Ferdinand as he drove along the main road in Sarajevo, the Appel Quay.

Sarajevo was in Bosnia, the province that - to Serbia's anger - had been annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908.

The first conspirator who tried to kill Franz Ferdinand threw a bomb at his car. He missed and was arrested.

No one had told the driver the route had changed. On the way back, therefore, the driver turned into Franz Josef Street, following the published route and, when told of his error, stopped the car to turn around.

The Archduke escaped unhurt. He decided to abandon the visit and return home via a different route to the one planned.

Unfortunately, the car stopped in front of Gavrilo Princip, one of the conspirators, who was on his way home thinking he had failed.

Princip pulled out a gun and shot at Franz Ferdinand, hitting him in the jugular vein. There was a tussle, during which Princip shot and killed Sophie. By 11.30am, Franz Ferdinand had bled to death.

Imperialism

The purpose of imperialism was and is to build up national wealth and influence by owning colonies.

Both France and Britain had many colonies in Africa and Asia.

European nations ruled smaller countries, called colonies, and competed with each other to amass more colonies.

In the 1880s and 1890s, Germany and Italy decided they wanted a colonial empire too.

This global competition for land caused confrontations and conflicts in many places. For example, Great Britain almost went to war with France and the United States during the 1880s over colonies.

Alliances

Each country would be protected by others in case of war, making it foolish for one country to wage war on another.

The danger of these alliances was that an argument between two countries could draw all the other nations allied with them into a fight.

For twenty years, the nations of Europe had been making alliances. It was thought the alliances would promote peace.

This is just what happened when a conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia led to World War I.

In the summer of 1914 there were two alliances. The Triple Alliance composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, stood opposed to the Triple Entente composed of Britain, France, and Russia.

Militerism

Germany and France competed to build larger armies. Many nations introduced “universal conscription” (the draft), even in times of peace.

For reasons of prestige and self-defence, the more one nation built up its army and navy, the more other nations felt they had to do the same.

It was an “arms race.” Because Britain had a large navy, Germany wanted a large navy too.

The expense of the “arms race” fell on civilian populations in the form of high taxes. Between 1870 and 1914, all of the major powers except Great Britain and the United States, doubled the size of their armies.

Nationalism

The belief that your country is better than others. This made nations assertive and aggressive

The belief that one’s own nation or culture is superior to all others, nationalism led European nations to compete to build the largest army and navy.

It also gave groups of subject peoples the idea of forming independent nations of their own. Serbians, Czechs, Slovaks, Bosnians and many other peoples living under the rule of the Ottoman or Austro-Hungarian Empires wanted freedom from “foreign” rule.

Moroccan Crisis

1st Moroccan Crisis

Britain was the dominating power of empire in Africa in 1905, closely followed by France. In 1904 Britain and France signed an agreement called the Entente Cordiale in which of the many agreements was that Britain agreed not to fight with France over control of Morocco and to support it in this action. As many European countries had an Empire Morocco was one of the last places not to be taken by a Great power and still remained independent. So with both France and Germany wanted it. Germany seeing that Britain and France had just recently signed the Entente Cordiale decided to test how strong this agreement between the two countries was.

After this was key because already there was a starting to become a division of Europe and Germany had lost against France because France now had some control over Morocco, also the Entente Cordiale was strengthened and Britain started to change its policy of splendid isolation and started to take notice of European matters. An international conference was held at Algeciras (Spain) in 1906. Germany was weakly supported by Austria-Hungary and Morocco were as France was supported by Britain, Russia, and Spain.

2nd Moroccan Crisis

In 1911 the ruling Sultan of Morocco faced a rebellion and decided to call on France for help, France sent an army to Morocco and the rebellion soon went away.

However Germany’s reaction to this was to send a gunboat the Panther to the port of Agadir this was to protect the German people’s interests in Morocco.

The British thought that Germany was going to build a naval base in the Atlantic to challenge Britain’s naval base in Gibraltar. The naval action of Germany sending the gunship the Panther led to Britain once again supporting France.

The situation was resolved when Germany accepted two marshy strips of land in the Congo for recognising and accepting that France had control over Morocco.